The little honeybee girl wandered for the sake of wandering; enticed by everything and anything all at once. She knew about the world in only minute granules – the smell of the salty, ocean air, the tender warmth of the Throat’s sands, the rise and fall of the oasis, the fiery embers scorched on cavern walls – and each time she meandered there seemed to be something that caught her attention, made her dream, made her hope, made her mind prosper and her heart full. Truly, she realized she shouldn’t have waltzed off, away from the safety of the draconic lands and the unspoken savagery contorted through its crimson facets, but she was also a driven creature, moved and maneuvered and enticed by the splendor of the rain ghosting over feathers, by the nightfall casting a brooding shadow, by the twists, turns, and tapestry of the unknown. Without her sister or her mother nearby, there was truly naught to stop her from reaching past the boundaries of the dunes and clawing through the eternal abyss, alone, unguarded, innocent and bold to a fault – scorched by some unseen layer, some tangent, some brutal characteristic forged between her chest, heart, and essence. Even when fear and apprehension should have seared past her bones and right out through her lungs, until she was a shaking leaf, until she was a screeching damsel, the girl was silent in her awe and reverie, in her widened eyes, in her reverence for the particles of the swiveling enigmas.

So naught could cease her abrupt motions, her following steps, when the lights flickered in the distance – haunting, tempting illuminations – and tiny Melita reached for them the only way she could understand or comprehend: rampaging straight after them, whistling chords of silliness, of joviality, shouting out “Who are you?” and still forging on when there was no answer, no rhyme, no reason. It could’ve been a ghost, it could’ve been a spirit, it couldn’t been a wraith intending to drown her in the nearest lake, but the youth held no grudges, no poignant gestures, no hollowed myths and hallowed stories of what lurked amidst the chaos, the bedlam, the bramble. Any distortion, any nuance, any hint of danger or treachery was a simple fragment honed only by instinct, and heedlessly shoved to the side as she was bewitched, as she was beguiled, as she was tossed amidst the gathering crowd.

Her eyes focused almost solely on the strange apparition, growing closer and closer until she seemed banded with the others, all striving to get a nearer look or holding back due to consternation. The youth’s gaze only swept over the others briefly, most completely unknown or foreign to her (a pattern; she almost snorted at the thought, but didn’t wrinkle her nose despite the noted aspiration), save for Vezer (and she didn’t race to her automatically, choosing to hold her ground along the side, proud for no other reason except she was here, observing and occupying space with the oddest of things). Eventually, her brazen airs won out, and she hastened a quick “Hello!” to the seemingly equine figures that proceeded from the machine; entranced all over again, flung into the corridors and avenues of impulses and inclinations.

Seeking a Zephyr (Wakiya). No prior refusals.

Melita

let me live that fantasy